The Justice of Zaleucus

This fresco fragment, together with the Tarquinius Priscus episode, comes from the rooms on the first floor of Palazzo Baldassini in Rome, the first civic building designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, between 1516 and c. 1519.

To demonstrate his impartiality before the law, Zaleucus, the Greek lawgiver punished his own son, who had committed adultery, by having one of his eyes gouged out. The scene depicts the moment in which Zaleucus holds out his arm to issue the order to the executioner, while the young man, sitting at the foot of a column on the right, resignedly accepts his fate. The narrative vibrancy of the scene, the elegant use of colour, and the many references to the culture of the Vatican Loggias (frescoed by Raphael and pupils, among them Perino del Vaga) including the same light, rapid brush strokes, are specific features of Perino del Vaga’s art in this period.